#DiorLoveChain - "And you, what would you do for love?”

...was the open ended question given to a selection of creators on Whalar for the Dior Love Chain brief. They were encouraged to answer the question through any medium they saw fit, whether that was photograph, video, cinemagraph or animation, and the brief was explored in a variety of ways. Some focused on the love they shared with their partners, some with their friends and family. The brief was, as intended, interpreted wildly differently from person to person, here's just a small selection of the work and the creative process behind it.

The Charity Initiative

The collaboration also had a meaning deeper than just the production of gorgeous content. Whilst the answers to the question posed all wildly varied, the main theme that resonated with all of them was the need to help others. No matter what it is that you would ‘do’ for love, or who it is that you love, helping your beloved was at the heart of every Instagram post. That’s why the Dior campaign also had a charity initiative behind it, because helping others is always the best way to show affection.

Every time #DiorLoveChain was shared on Instagram — along with an accompanying visual answering the question, “And, you what would you do for love?” — Dior donated $1 to the WE charity, established to end poverty among children and provide schooling for girls in Kenya. Since launching on August 26, the campaign has reached 16.6 million people, generating 600k+ engagements. Whalar helped create 27 pieces of video content, and 173 images, across 200 influencers globally, and has generated more than 31,000 Dior-approved posts.

The Stories

At the heart of this campaign was the unique interpretation of the brief from each creator. Below is just a small selection of the people who worked on the campaign, and why.

@y.asmeena says that when she heard the brief, the idea came easily to her. She says,

“for love, I would do anything to make my husband smile”.

Yasmeena clearly knows the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, as her image depicted the couple sharing a picnic together. She also says that although she ‘wanted to showcase her love for her best friend’ it was ‘more important’ to her to support the charity initiative, saying ‘helping people in need is the best way to spread love’.

Many influencers emphasised that time and effort were a key factor to showing their love; Estonian based creative @mariiajulia_ said that she would ‘travel all across Europe to be with her friends and family, for love’, whilst @isabelleth said she wished she could ‘carry around her loved ones at all times, to make sure they are safe’.

Amit Zantker, fashion photographer and editor, agrees that it's the energy you give out that shows how much you love someone. She says that

'I am a person that will, for the people I love, do absolutely everything. One of the values my mother raised me and my brothers on was to love and give back no matter what, and that is what we do everyday as a family and in our personal life.'

This belief was the fundamental idea behind her image;

'Thats why I decided to do a portrait of myself and illustrate on it another "me" which goes out of her body, and out of her way, for love. For me, Love is that devotion when you are 100 percent there for those you love in every way. Love is natural and positive and beautiful, something I conveyed in my work with the harmonic colours. I wanted to work on this campaign because I saw a truly amazing opportunity to spread love and do something meaningful on Instagram; it was both close to my heart, and an excellent way to help a charity'.

Influencer Diana Wang wanted to share her story through showing an alternative method of parenthood.

"I noticed there are far fewer stories on what it's really like to be a new dog parent than the experience of being a parent to a human baby. As much as my husband and I studied before we got our French Bulldog, Butter, the experience of caring and bonding with a puppy still took us by surprise. At the mere age of 6 months, Butter suffered from, among many minor ailments, recurring coughing which later deteriorated into pneumonia. He is also specific on temperatures, environmental sanitation and has a food allergy. Yet the bond rooted deeper than we could imagine. Our life literally changed with him. So when the Dior Love Chain campaign wanted to open up a dialogue on love, I thought it was the perfect chance to shed some light on the topic."

Not only was the content produced in the #DiorLoveChain campaign beautiful, and the campaign itself highly successful, the meaning behind it has affected real change. The Dior Love Chain will hopefully encourage the luxury market to open up to the possibility of influencer campaigns, and take note of the charity initiative at the heart of it.